I am proud to count myself among those few. Social media is the modern public square and must be treated as such.
The only explanation I've come up with so far is that the people saying stuff like this are profoundly stupid, and I really hate it when my only explanation of a POV is that facile and self-serving. I don't mean to pick on you in particular but I'm hoping you can explain this to me and try to steelman this common refrain.
Free speech as a concept (or a spectrum) exists independently of its codification in our Constitution. It's not something the founders accidentally wrote down and now we're stuck with it: they did it for a reason that some people (myself and the parent comment included) find compelling in contexts other than simply "when the Constitution forces us to".
It's fine to disagree with its relevance to specific contexts, but what on earth compels you to think that "The Constitution doesn't force us to!" is a remotely relevant response to "I think free speech is a good idea in this context"?
Free speech exists as a concept, but protected free speech doesn't. You can't have protected free speech without the laws that protect it. The point I made slightly flippantly is about the extent of the protection. Most people interpret the law as protecting the right to speak, not the right to speak on a specific platform.
As with all things this is best explained with an XKCD reference: https://xkcd.com/1357/
If we didn't have laws against murder, would murder not still be wrong?
Just because the government is prevented from creating laws that infringe on free speech, that doesn't mean that individual infringement on free speech is morally permissible.
Free speech certainly includes the right to try to convince people to amplify your speech. It generally does not include an entitlement to have them do it for you without you having to convince them.
> You can't have protected free speech without the laws that protect it.
The claim the parent comment was rebutting was "private platforms can and should be arbiters of permissible speech". It's entirely consistent to think that (eg) Facebook shouldn't pick and choose what you're allowed to say on its platform, without thinking that the government should enforce their neutrality. Again... You may disagree, but that claim need not have anything to do with government.
Part of the confusion here may be that you're interpreting his comment as requiring the government to enforce said neutrality, and I'm not: specifically because the statement being argued against includes the notion that Facebook should be an arbiter of acceptable speech.
And fwiw, I think the xkcd comic is as stupid as the parent comment who posted it does.
Yes, but the reason was intimately connected to their view of the role of government and the liberty people should have with respect to the application of their own voice and property. Restraining that liberty to compel those who own mechanisms of communication to be neutral rather than applying their own discretion is in tension with that ideal.
There's certainly a case for such compulsion as part of the regulation of monopoly providers without meaningful substitute as a communication mechanism, and there is certainly cause for some focussed regulation for public accommodations in general, in any field. But those are exceptional cases.
I didn't interpret the comment in question as claiming that the government should be compelling open speech. He disagreed with the quote "private platforms can and should be arbiters of permissible speech". I too vehemently disagree with this idea, but that doesn't mean I believe that the govt should enforce their neutrality.
I agree that the bar for govt action compelling speech is very high and don't think that this meets it. I just consider it an ethical imperative for Facebook et al to reject the idea that they should be an arbiter of permissible speech.
Free speech excist as a concept outside the constitution and did not come into existence magically from nothing when the admentement was ratified.